Dying Daily

Dying Daily #356: A Middle Finger in Our Heart

September 8, 2017

Oh man, only 9 left. I am looking forward to taking a break from it now that I have it set in my mind.

Building on the topic of honesty from the day before yesterday.

I struggle with the idea of smiling through anger and just patting people on the back when you want to strangle them. I don’t struggle with managing it. That’s easy. I struggle with the dishonesty of it.

This kind of behavior is very much a part of the culture where I live. We couch it in Christian love and Southern hospitality, but at its core it’s dishonest. It quickly turns passive aggressive and condescending and retaliatory because the person can’t maintain it for long. It’s too hard to hide the truth for any significant length of time.

The smile on our face can only hide the middle finger in our heart for so long.

A smile on our face is window dressing, the middle finger in our heart is the actual product. It turns us into a bright red apple that is full of worms. A house with new windows and doors and a manicured lawn that is full of rats. A car with a new paint job and tinted windows without an engine or seats. I wonder if it would just be better to have the middle finger on our face and be done with it. At least then the problem could be dealt with, and everyone could move forward in honesty.

Is it honest to smile at people when you have a middle finger in your heart? Is there a way to address things instead of hiding them? Is conflict always wrong?

Recent Posts

Click Here to Subscribe!

“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.” Nietzsche